


Leading the Blind

by LadyLienDa



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo 2019-2020 [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blindness, Broken Bones, Crash Landing, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Prompt Fill, prompt: loss of sight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:47:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25637545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLienDa/pseuds/LadyLienDa
Summary: Matt’s day was not going well. Getting stuck on an unfamiliar forest moon with Keith wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to him, but honestly, he’d had better days aboard the Galra starship.With no supplies and one of them injured and unable to walk, Matt had better come up with something to get them both out of there and back to the Coalition.Oh well, things can't get much worse, can they?Written for Bad Things Happen Bingo
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo 2019-2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1251959
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	Leading the Blind

**Author's Note:**

> This prompt was brought to me by an anon on Tumblr.  
> Anon wrote: Hi! Can I please request 'Loss of sight' with Keith and Matt for Bthb? :) 
> 
> This is less angsty than I think it could have been, but I think it turned out pretty good. Hope you enjoy!

Matt’s day was not going well. Getting stuck on an unfamiliar forest moon with Keith wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to him, but honestly, he’d had better days aboard the Galra starship.

For starters, their engine had given out just as they left hyperspace, causing an explosion that nearly blew the ship apart around them. Luckily, they still had half the ship left and were able to crash the smoking wreckage on a nearby moon, where the abundance of flora somewhat cushioned their fall.

To make matters worse, they both suffered nasty knocks to the head and lots of bruises everywhere else, and Matt’s ankle had most definitely been broken, judging by the screaming, throbbing pain he felt. The cockpit was so thoroughly trashed they couldn’t reach the compartment where the medkit was, and they suspected it had been crushed and would be no good anyway. Thus, they were stranded with half a ship (if that), no medical supplies, and no sign of civilization in any direction.

To top it all off, if this was what the Coalition rebels classified as a “forest moon,” then he would hate to see what they would call a jungle. The trees here had purplish-gray bark (because of course they did. Why couldn’t any alien fauna look normal?), leaves so dark they were almost black, and thick, trailing vines that resembled snakes draped across their twisted branches. At this point, Matt wouldn’t be surprised if they turned out to actually be snakes.

“Ugh,” Matt groaned, holding a hand to his pounding head as he looked around. “Remind me never to wake up in the morning ever again.”

Keith looked just as miserable as Matt felt, sprawled on the ground a few feet away from where they had both crawled out of the broken and smashed cockpit. “Noted,” he muttered with a sigh through his nose.

They spent a few moments just sitting there catching their breath before they began to discuss what to do. All they had were the suits on their backs, their weapons, and whatever supplies they had attached to their belts, which wasn’t much. Keith had a few compact Blade-issued ration bars and hydration patches, so they were good on food for a day or two, but after that there was no guarantee.

“I can’t raise anyone on the comms,” Matt said, frowning at the readout on his wrist. “I think all the foliage overhead is messing with our transmissions.”

“That, or it’s the atmosphere,” Keith suggested, fidgeting with the comm on his own wrist. “Whatever the case, neither of our comms are working. Does yours have a scanner? We could at least find out if this place is habited.”

Matt did a quick scan. “Too much organic matter – it’s overloading the scan. Maybe if I adjusted it…?”

Keith waited patiently while Matt fiddled with the gadget.

“No good,” said Matt after a while, letting his arms fall to his lap in frustration. “We’ll have to try climbing a tree or something to get a signal out.”

Both of them frowned up at the massive press of foliage around them. Some of the tallest trees were easily as tall as a skyscraper.

“Which…isn’t going to be easy,” Matt muttered. Keith hummed and looked from the tree back down to Matt’s ankle. Matt grimaced. He could feel his boot growing uncomfortably tight and knew it was starting to swell. He wished he had a splint, or even an ice pack.

“Well, if you think it’s the best option, I’ll do it,” said Keith, standing and stretching. “Should be interesting. I used to climb the cliffs in the desert all the time. Maybe it’ll be easier?”

Matt could hear the uncertainty in his voice. He sighed, wishing he could think of a safer option. But their shuttle was completely ruined and wouldn’t provide even basic shelter. They couldn’t stay there and wait for it to get dark and risk attracting who-knew-what kind of wild animals living there. “If that makes you feel better,” said Matt, unstrapping his comm and handing it to Keith. “Sorry about this.”

Keith shrugged. “Eh, I’ve done more dangerous things than climb trees.”

With that, he looked around, sizing up the trees around him. Matt noticed him grimace slightly and put his hand to his temple. They were both bruised and battered, and Matt wouldn’t be surprised if they both turned out to have nasty concussions. Nevertheless, they couldn’t wait for anyone to try and track them down; not with the ship so badly damaged as it was and no other shelter in sight.

Keith, having selected a tree with low branches, took a running jump and scrambled nimbly up the twisted and gnarled trunk. Something like glittering shards dislodged from the purple-gray bark wherever Keith’s gloves or boots touched, revealing a brighter purple beneath. If this had been any other situation, Matt would have loved to study these plants.

“How’re you doing?” He called as Keith continued to clamber up the tree branch by branch. They were so thick and spaced so far apart, it took effort to jump and seize hold of each branch and then hoist himself up onto them like he was climbing out of a swimming pool.

“I’m good!” Keith called down before jumping and grabbing the next branch. He was only four branches up. This was going to take a while.

Matt sighed and looked down, rubbing at his still-throbbing head with his left hand and absently digging at the ground with his right, trying not to think about the searing ball of pain that was his right ankle. He was sitting on a cushiony bed of discarded black leaves. The forest floor smelled earthy, naturally, with the usual scent of decomposing leaves and a sharp, pungent smell that might have been those funny puffball-like flowers peeking out of a teal-green bush a few feet away. They were a deep burgundy color and Matt wondered what they were supposed to attract. Some kind of alien bee? Or maybe a hummingbird-

A scream shattered Matt’s train of thought and his head snapped up so quickly he nearly gave himself whiplash. Keith was reeling, trying to keep his balance atop the thick branch, clutching at his face as he continued to cry out. One of those thick, trailing vines Matt had thought looked like snakes was now moving on its own, sliding ominously down from the branch above Keith. A hissing sound reached his ears. Matt squinted, trying to see through the thick black foliage, and finally spotted an ugly, spotted, spade-shaped head slowly approaching Keith, flicking its tongue.

Why in the universe had he thought of snakes earlier? It was like his thought at how the vines had resembled snakes had somehow conjured the creature into being.

“Keith, look out!” He shouted. “It’s a snake!”

“Where is it?!” Keith cried, still clutching his face. “I can’t see!”

Matt thought fast, still craning his neck to see between the gaps in the leaves. “Use your knife! It’s right in front of you, about three feet and closing!”

Keith fumbled blindly with one hand for the knife he kept at the small of his waist, still holding tightly to his face with the other. With a small flash of light, the blade extended into a shortsword (Matt _still_ had no idea how it worked), and Keith struck out wildly with it, all of his usual finesse and skill gone in the midst of panic.

The blade struck the side of the snake’s head. It was only a glancing blow, but it was enough. There was a startled hiss and the thick, ropy coils dropped from Keith’s branch to the one below it and slithered away, still hissing angrily.

Good. That was one problem solved. The other? Keith was still five branches up into a tree, about two and half stories up by Matt’s reckoning. He was still clutching at his eyes and struggling to keep his balance.

“Is it gone?” He shouted down in a much higher voice than usual. It gave Matt another jolt on top of his already mounting panic. In the few interactions Matt had had with Keith, the other boy had been upset and even startled, but his voice had never sounded this panicked before.

“Yeah, it’s gone.” Matt replied, wincing at how his head responded to all this yelling by throbbing even worse. “How are you?”

Keith’s voice still sounded high and a little screechy. “I still can’t see! It spat something into my face! It burns!”

Well, that explained a lot. Keith must have grabbed hold of it, thinking it was a vine. Matt only hoped that whatever it had spat wasn’t acid or something equally corrosive. With this being an alien snake in an alien jungle on an alien planet, who knew what it was capable of?

Keith was still teetering dangerously on the branch. Matt instinctively tried to get up and instantly sat back down again as his leg and head screamed at him in protest. He was stuck. Mind racing, he shouted directions at Keith to sit down carefully on the branch, so he’d have better balance.

“Okay,” Keith replied shakily, slowly lowering himself to the edge where his legs were swinging off the side. “Now what?” he asked. “I’m still five branches up!”

“Hang on, let me figure this out,” Matt replied, hoping his voice sounded calmer than he felt. “I think I can help direct you down. Just go slowly and make sure you have a good hold, okay?”

“Okay,” was Keith’s response, and with that Matt began the nerve-wracking task of giving directions on how to descend a massive tree while blind. At Matt’s direction, Keith slid off the edge of his branch and swung before dropping to the branch directly below. Keith seemed to have good balance even while blind, and Matt was encouraged by the progress. He continued to give directions and Keith made it two more branches until disaster struck.

Unlike the other three branches, the second one wasn’t directly underneath the third one – it was slightly to the side. However, from his angle, Matt didn’t see the difference and thus didn’t tell Keith to swing accordingly. When Keith dropped, his feet slipped right over the edge, sliding on the scale-like outer bark. He screamed and scrabbled for purchase with his hands, spraying little glittering purple-gray shards everywhere, but it was no good. Matt could only watch in stunned horror as Keith fell, straight past the second and first branches to crash into the undergrowth below.

“Keith!” He shouted, trying again to stand up and collapsing to the ground with a hoarse shout of his own when his leg ground painfully and gave out on him.

For several agonizing seconds, Matt could do nothing but lay sprawled on the ground, trying to breathe through the worst headache he’d ever had and an ankle that felt like it was being skewered slowly by a hot stick. There was no sound from where Keith had fell, and with all the undergrowth, Matt had lost sight of him. He had no idea if Keith was alright or if he’d knocked himself unconscious with that fall.

That was the worst part of Matt’s horrible day, and that topped the initial crash and getting his leg broken. The utter feeling of helplessness overwhelmed him, and he faded in and out of awareness for a few moments, lost in the crashing waves of his headache.

Relief surged as he became aware of a rustling sound in the bushes over where Keith had landed. He’d never been so happy to hear the rustle of bushes as he was in that moment.

“Matt?!” came Keith’s still strangely elevated voice. There was more rustling. Matt lifted his head off the cushion of leaves and struggled to sit up again.

“I’m here, Keith! Keep following my voice!” he called, watching as the bushes crashed violently and Keith tumbled out of them, snagging his foot on a root and nearly falling face-first into the forest floor.

“That’s it, keep coming!” Matt encouraged, sounding better than he felt. While he was relieved that Keith seemed alright, the fact that he apparently still couldn’t see was alarming.

Keith finally made it over and collapsed to the ground, reaching blindly out with one hand.

“Matt, where are y- oh, sorry,” he broke off as his scrabbling fingertips snagged in Matt’s hair.

“Hi,” said Matt, feeling a bit of laughter rise into his throat in spite of their situation. “You okay?”

It was a stupid question, but Matt couldn’t think of any other way to ask it. Keith didn’t seem to mind. He gestured to his eyes, which were squeezed tightly shut. “A little more bruised than I was, and I think I tweaked my hip a bit, but other than that and the fact that my face feels like it’s been peeled off, I think I’m okay. That could have been worse.”

Matt hummed in agreement. Now that he was close, he could survey the damage to Keith’s face. Whatever the alien snake had spat at Keith was a weird, glossy orange, and wherever it had touched the skin was angry, red, and swollen. If not for the orange residue still glistening on his face, he looked like he’d been stung several times by huge bees.

“Did any of that stuff get in your eyes?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Keith answered. His voice was back to its normal timbre now that he was safely on the ground and no longer perched precariously in the tree. “Everything is burning and stinging. I can’t tell if it got in my eyes or not.”

Matt frowned. “Well, regardless, your eyes are all swollen shut, so it doesn’t matter if it got in your eyes or not – you probably can’t open them anyway. Your face looks like Harry Potter when Hermione hit him with that stinging jinx.”

Keith, who was carefully scrubbing away the orange residue with his gloved hand and wiping it on the ground, paused, seeming confused. “I never got into that.”

Matt gaped. “Really? Aww, man, they’re classics. The books are the best, of course. They remade the movies a few years ago, but the originals are way better, even though they’re really old now. Maybe when we get back to Earth Pidge and I can show them to you.”

Keith nodded. “That sounds great, actually.” Then his face fell. “What do we do now, though?”

Matt had no idea. He opened his mouth to stammer out something reassuring but was interrupted by a series of short, sharp beeps from Keith’s wrist.

No way.

Matt grabbed at the commlink, quickly unstrapping it from Keith’s wrist and holding it up to examine it.

“That what I think it was?” Keith asked, sitting still with his swollen face aimed blindly off to Matt’s right.

Matt nodded, then remembered Keith couldn’t see it. “Yeah, it was. I guess the scanner was able to pick up a signal just briefly. There seems to be some sort of station or comm tower about a mile from here if the scanner is accurate. If we got ourselves there, we could probably send out a distress signal to the Coalition or the castleship.”

“Really?” Keith asked, perking up. “Only a mile?”

Matt grimaced. “Well, that might as well be a light-year for me. How the heck are we going to get me and my broken leg over there through all that undergrowth?”

Keith frowned, which looked odd on his swollen face. Not for the first time, Matt wished they had their first aid kit.

“I could carry you,” Keith suggested after a moment. “I can’t see, but the rest of me is still strong. You can’t walk, but you can see. You could be my eyes.”

Matt considered for a moment. “That’s not a bad idea.”

Keith snorted. “I think it’s the _only_ idea. The only one I see that will work at this point. What other options do we have? We don’t have enough rations or supplies to camp out here and wait for the Coalition to track us down, and who knows if they even could with all the organic matter messing with the scanners. That signal origin sounds like our best bet.”

“I’m not opposed to it,” Matt said, “but it’s not going to be as easy as it looks. We’ll have to go slow and hopefully you won’t have to bushwhack too much.”

They didn’t waste any more time after that. After some careful maneuvering, Keith situated Matt into a piggyback carry, and they set off in the direction the scanner had picked up the signal. The going wasn’t as tough as Matt had feared, as they were able to move around some of the denser growth instead of having to hack their way through it. After some awkwardness and a few times where Keith almost tripped on an unseen root or branch, they got the hang of working together. Matt quickly learned to call out everything he saw instead of just taking it in, and Keith was careful to put his foot down slowly with each step in case the ground was uneven or something was in the way. Mercifully, they didn’t run into any more snakes, although they did startle a few birds of some kind. They flew screeching out of a bush in a rush of gray and black feathers, almost causing Keith to topple over in shock. More than once, they came across some undergrowth they couldn’t maneuver around and Keith had to carefully set Matt down so he could draw his sword and cut through the thick foliage.

This was quite a new experience for Matt – once he got over the minor indignation of having to be carried by someone more or less his own age, he quickly got used to the sensation of being Keith’s eyes. It was like being a pilot, but he couldn’t actually move anything directly. Rather, he gave Keith directions, and Keith slowly and carefully followed them.

For his part, Keith was silent and determined throughout. With Matt constantly voicing directions, there wasn’t much room for conversation, and Matt’s past encounters with Keith had taught him the other boy wasn’t much for idle chatter anyway. They made their way through the jungle in relative silence save for Matt’s directions.

At last they reached their destination – a comm tower built from a weird bluish stone. There was some kind of hover vehicle parked on the small lot outside it, but Matt didn’t know whether that was good or bad. The place didn’t _look_ like a Galra tower, but it could have been commandeered.

Nevertheless, there was nothing they could do at this point except head cautiously up to the reinforced metal door and knock.

At once, a robotic arm popped out of a panel in the wall beside the door, and after Matt got over his initial shock, his first thought was that it looked like the door droid in Star Wars. It had the same bulb on the end and everything.

_“Oi! Oo are you?”_ came an accented voice from the speaker. The voice sounded tired and more than a little suspicious.

Matt cleared his throat. “Uh, our ship crashed about a mile out and we need to send a signal for our friends to come pick us up. May we come in? My friend is injured.”

“So are you,” Keith pointed out.

_“Are you wit’ the Galra Empire?”_

Matt paused. “No, we’re with the Voltron Coalition,” he replied, hoping he hadn’t just made a huge mistake. To his relief, however, there was a loud buzzing noise and something clicked in the door lock.

_“Come on in,”_ said the voice, sounding less tired and less suspicious, _“I’ll see what I c’n do.”_

“Thank you,” said Keith, and at Matt’s guidance, found the door handle and stepped inside.

The base of the tower had a small kitchen, eating area, and even something resembling a sofa and television. A door off to the right stood ajar and Matt glimpsed what looked like a bunkroom beyond it. The table was littered with old convenience food packages and empty beverage bottles. Several crates were stacked next to the battered old couch, stamped with something Matt couldn’t read.

To the left was a set of metal stairs. Matt heard footsteps approaching and presently a short, thin, green-skinned figure with stubby brown horns and rather impressively long white eyebrows appeared. He wore an ill-fitting black uniform of some kind and blinked sleepily at them with squinty, beady blue eyes.

“What’s the matter wit’choo?” He asked, frowning at the pair.

“Please, have you got a first aid kit?” Matt asked. “My friend was spat at by some kind of wildlife and now he can’t see.”

The alien blinked and then nodded in realization. “Ah. Got hit by _mirlox_ spit, huh? Nasty things.” He nodded to Matt. “What happened t’ you?”

“Broken ankle. I need a splint.”

The alien gestured over to the sofa. “Well, no use standin’ there. Siddown, I’ve got just the stuff.”

He stumped off toward a cabinet near the bunkroom door while Matt directed Keith forward out of the entryway and over to the little living area. With a bit of tricky maneuvering and the green alien’s help, Keith was able to get Matt down and settled on the couch with his leg up on a crate. The sofa smelled dusty and was covered in candy wrappers and blue crumbs.

“Name’s Ryne,” said the alien as he opened the yellow box he’d found in the cabinet and fished around. “This ‘ere’s a comm station so the locals c’n keep in contact with the main planet out yonder. Them’s allies wit’ the Voltron Coalition and now I’m paid t’ run comms and boost signals. Not paid enough ‘n my opinion. Whatcha two doin’ out here, anyway?”

“Actually, we weren’t supposed to be in this sector at all,” said Keith as Ryne’s long, deft fingers brought out a small bottle of some kind of spray and shook it. “Our warp engine gave out mid-jump and we crashed.”

“Here, this’ll take the burn away,” Ryne said, holding up the bottle and spraying a bluish mist right into Keith’s face. “Lucky you crashed where you did, then. ‘S hard to get a signal out wit’ all these trees.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” said Matt dryly. “That’s why we hauled ourselves over here. We need to get a signal out to the Coalition so they can come pick us up.”

“I c’n do that,” said Ryne, rummaging around in the box again, “soon as I get your leg situated. Dunno ‘bout you hoo-man folks, but I’d expect broken legs hurt somethin’ fierce.”

“Oh, they do,” said Matt, and accepted a splint and a shot of painkiller gratefully.

“I’ll send a signal t’ the Coalition,” said Ryne, opening a nearby crate and tossing Matt two water bottles.

“Thank you,” Matt said, and told him their names and relevant information for him to relay. Nodding, Ryne turned and stumped up the stairs, pulling up his sagging pants a little as he did.

The little living area was left in silence, and Matt sank back into the sofa with a deep sigh. The painkillers were beginning to kick in, relieving him of his throbbing headache.

“What a day,” he groaned. “Can’t wait to meet back up with Pidge. When I tell her what happened she’ll tease me to no end about having to be carried.”

Keith’s face was aimed slightly downward, as if he was staring at his lap. It was still shining red, like a lobster, but Matt noticed the swelling seemed to be going down a bit. Whatever was in that spray must have been a natural antidote to that snake’s venom. At Matt’s words, Keith smiled a little.

“Yeah, she probably will. And she’ll probably tease me for falling out of a tree.”

They both chuckled for a bit and the room lapsed into silence once again. Matt shifted a little and brushed away a candy wrapper and some crumbs, watching them scatter onto the cracked stone floor.

“I’m sorry you got hit with that stupid snake venom and fell out of the tree,” he said after a while. “If I hadn’t insisted –”

“It was the only way to get a signal out,” Keith interrupted. “If I hadn’t gone in the tree, we wouldn’t have known about this comm tower and we would have either had to wait by the ship or blunder around hoping we bumped into something. It was the best option, and yeah, the venom sucks. My face feels like it’s been roasted over a fire, but at least we’re safe now and not stuck back at the crash site with no supplies and no shelter and no rescue.”

“I guess when you put it like that, it makes sense,” said Matt, placing one of the water bottles Ryne had given him into Keith’s hand before cracking open the other one and taking a sip. “Thank you for trusting me to be your eyes. That can’t have been easy for you,” he said after he swallowed.

Keith shrugged. “I’m pretty fit. I mean, you’re not exactly Pidge in terms of weight, and I think I’ll probably be sore when I wake up tomorrow, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I hope I didn’t jostle your leg too much.”

Matt assured him no, he hadn’t, and then chuckled a little to hide the pang of sadness that suddenly overcame him. Matt hadn’t been talking about the physical aspect of their ordeal, although whether Keith could carry him all that way without his arms giving out had certainly crossed his mind a time or two. No, he was referring to the mere act of trusting someone else to guide you to safety. Matt hadn’t interacted with Keith enough to say he knew him well, but between his few interactions and what he’d heard from Shiro, he’d gathered enough about the other boy to know that trust didn’t come easily to him. He could joke around, even be friendly in the right setting and with the right people, but when it came to real friendship and trust Matt knew Keith was incredibly hesitant.

At that thought, Matt was reminded of his family dog back on Earth. When they’d first gotten Bae Bae from a rescue organization, she was shy and wary, distrusting of everyone. Once she learned to trust, she opened up over time and became the happy, silly, goofy family dog they all loved.

Keith was a lot like Bae Bae had been in those early stages. Hesitant, willing to open up, but hardly daring to in case he got burned again. Matt guessed this ordeal had been a particular stretch for him. A sudden loss of sight would be hard for anyone to cope with, but the loss of independence had to have been tough for Keith, because of how helpless and vulnerable he felt. Matt hated feeling that way, and he could only imagine how much that would be amplified in someone like Keith.

Matt decided not to correct him, however. Keith was a private person, he’d gathered, and Matt didn’t want to intrude any more than he had to. It was best to let the matter drop. They were safe, help was on the way, and soon the whole ordeal would be behind them.

A shuffling of footsteps signaled the reappearance of Ryne. He slouched around the corner, scratching idly at one of his eyebrows.

“Coalition ship’s on its way,” he said. “I gotta keep watchin’ the comms, but I’ll let you know when it’s close.”

“Thanks, Ryne,” said Matt, “for everything.”

Ryne grunted. “Thank you,” he said with a chuckle. “Everythin’s so boring ‘round here. ‘S good t’ have somethin different once in a while.”

With a nod and a wave of his hand, Ryne headed back up the stairs.

“Hey, I think I can see a little bit now,” said Keith. Matt looked over and saw that, indeed, Keith’s right eye was open a small sliver. The swelling had gone down even more in the last few moments. That spray stuff worked awfully fast.

“That’s good,” said Matt, reaching over and slapping Keith on the shoulder. “Hopefully the swelling will be all gone by the time the Coalition ship comes to pick us up.”

“Hopefully,” said Keith, taking another swig of the water bottle in his hand. He turned to squint his eye at Matt, a crooked smile on his face. “Thanks, Matt.”

Matt smiled back and thumped his shoulder again. “You’re welcome.”

**Author's Note:**

> This wasn't proofread, so let me know if you find any typos.
> 
> I'm like every other fanfic writer - I thrive on comments! They help me not to second-guess my writing skills.


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